Aunt Bee

Delane Melton

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The Southern Voice

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5 min read

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3 days ago

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I was blessed with aunts who adored all children, were fabulous cooks, and welcomed anyone and everyone into their well-kept homes. They have all gone to their rewards, but I am reminded of their many acts of love and kindness as I watch reruns of the Andy Griffith Show. The perfect aunt-character known as Beatrice Taylor, Sheriff Andy Taylor’s paternal aunt, was brilliantly played by Frances Bavier.

In 1960 in an episode of Danny Thomas’ TV sitcom, Make Room for Daddy, Danny is pulled over for speeding through a small town called Mayberry by Sherrif Andy Taylor. That show was the beginning of The Andy Griffith Show, and the character of Danny’s housekeeper, Henrietta Perkins, became the loveable Aunt Bee.

The first episode of The Andy Griffith Show introduces Andy’s Aunt Bee who according to the story, raised the Sheriff and is now moving to Mayberry to care for Opie. Rose who has taken care of Opie for years, is getting married and moving away. Little Opie cannot understand why Rose is leaving and rejects Aunt Bee as a substitute. Frances Bavier’s performance as Aunt Bee almost brings me to tears as she expresses her appreciation to Andy for an opportunity to be a part of the family that needs her.

Andy tries to include Aunt Bee on a fishing trip to convince his little boy that the new family member can do everything Rose did. Opie asks his dad, “If she’s such a great fisherman as you’ve been telling me, how come she fishes with her bait out of the water?” Andy gently lowers Aunt Bee’s fishing line into the water as he spins a yarn and tells Opie that she’s used to deep-sea fishing with porpoises flying fish and stuff like that. Opie asks, “You mean they fish with their bait out of the water?” Andy replies, “Oh sure, you see they come up and meet your pole halfway.” When a fish bites Aunt Bee’s hook, she pulls the small fish up out of the water and drops the fishing pole and fish onto the bank. For the first time, we hear that now-easily recognized, high-pitched voice, screaming as she runs all the way up the hill, hands flailing in the air. Opie is disgusted despite his dad’s down-home feeble attempt to explain the situation.

After many more blunders of Andy trying to convince his little son that things will be fine, Aunt Bee gives up and is leaving one morning before Opie wakes up. Opie hears her as she tells Andy how much she hoped things would work out. Opie runs to Aunt Bee who sits down on the running board of the truck as the little fellow climbs onto her lap and puts his arm around her neck. I’m already crying as he says, “Don’t go, Aunt Bee, I want you to stay.”

His dad asks him what changed his mind. Opie, with wisdom far beyond his years, says, “If she goes, what’ll happen to her? She doesn’t know how to do anything, play ball, catch fish, or hunt frogs; she’ll be helpless. She’s got to stay so I can teach them to her.” Looking at Aunt Bee with believable sincerity, little Opie says, “You need me!”

And stay she did, from 1960 to 1968 on the Andy Griffith Show and two years on the spinoff Mayberry RFD. In 1967, Frances Bavier won the Primetime Emmy Award for her role on the Andy Griffith Show.

The old phrase, “life imitating art,” could NOT be further from the truth in this case. The only similarity I could find between the actor Frances Bavier and the long-running character Aunt Bee was that neither had children of their own.

Frances Elizabeth Bavier was born in New York in 1902. Although she was born in the North, her life and craft later drew her to the South. With plans to be a teacher, she enrolled at Columbia University and later changed her life’s direction by enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she graduated in 1925. She traveled with the USO during WWII.

She appeared on Broadway in various roles between 1925 and 1951. During that time, she was married for 5 years to Russell Carpenter, who was reported to be a military person. They dated for two years prior, but the marriage ended in divorce. Later, Frances Bavier said he was charming but didn’t understand her need to be an actress. She and Carpenter did not have children, and she never married again.

Frances Bavier appeared in a few movies, including the original “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “Benji.” She then turned to acting on TV and appeared in Ford Television Theater, Pepsi Cola Playhouse, The Lone Ranger, Dragnet, Perry Mason, Wagon Train, and more. Her most famous role was Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show.

Three years before retiring in 1975, she bought a 3-story brick home in a town like the fictional Mayberry; Silar City, North Carolina. She said she fell in love with North Carolina and all the pretty roads and trees. She was easily recognized as Aunt Bee but did not like the attention. She said she loved the character, but every now and then, she got a hankering to play a really bad woman.

Without family or friends near, she remained somewhat of a recluse, residing with her 14 cats in North Carolina. A reporter for the New York Times said Frances admitted to being difficult to work with and she added, “I don’t have a lot of friends. I don’t see how anyone my age, working as hard as I do, can have a big social life. I get very annoyed with people and the older I get, the crankier I am. This work has had an effect on my personality. I’m impatient with people and oriented to action.”

She died in 1989 at the age of 86 of congestive heart failure following breast cancer and a heart attack. Her deplorable living conditions may have been attributed to her health issues and her death. She left a $100,000 trust to the Silar City, NC Police Department and the majority of the rest of the $700,000 estate to a hospital foundation.

Frances Bavier was laid to rest in Silar City. Her tombstone reads, “Aunt Bee … To live in the hearts of those left behind is not to die.”

Several years ago, I was gifted a wonderful cookbook, “Aunt Bee’s Delightful Desserts.” It’s more like a scrapbook of the Andy Griffith Show. The pictures are wonderful black-and-whites from the Andy Griffith Show, and over 350 recipes were donated by the actors and crew. There are several other cookbooks with title references to Aunt Bee available online.